NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – ArcherDx has signed agreements with PierianDx and the Molecular Pathology Laboratory Network (MPLN) to include its target enrichment assays in their respective products and services portfolios.
Specifically, Pierian and ArcherDx have signed co-marketing and licensing agreements that will allow Pierian to integrate Archer's FusionPlex and VariantPlex oncology target enrichment assays and its bioinformatics software, ArcherAnalysis, with PierianDx's Clinical Genomicist Workspace platform. Archer's assays and software let researchers test and report on known and novel gene fusions, copy number variants, point mutations, and relative expression levels from NGS libraries. PierianDx's proprietary CGW solution is a cloud-based platform that provides clinical labs with streamlined and accurate NGS data analysis, interpretation, and reporting.
The companies will work together to market and distribute their products and services globally, they said. The combined offering will help PierianDx's customers offer comprehensive, clinically relevant results to oncologists, PierianDx CEO Ted Briscoe said in a statement. Archer's assays "provide more granular details about CNVs, fusions and point mutations in … patient samples, providing enhanced NGS testing capability for clinical labs seeking a complete solution for their personalized medicine programs," he said.
"Partnering with PierianDx enables laboratories who use the Archer assays to seamlessly process clinical cases from accessioning to final report using PierianDx's comprehensive workflow, curated knowledgebase, and partner-sharing network," added Todd Pollard, ArcherDx's vice president of global sales and support.
ArcherDx also announced this week that MPLN is now a certified service provider of Archer's FusionPlex NGS assays. MPLN offers molecular anatomic pathology testing for hematologic cancers and solid tumors, and provides genetic and women's health testing to oncologists, pathologists, hospitals, and reference laboratories.
Under the terms of its agreement with the company, MPLN will offer a custom sarcoma analysis service that includes Archer's FusionPlex Sarcoma NGS assay as part of a broader range of testing services that the lab offers to customers in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
Archer's panels use the company's proprietary Anchored Multiplex PCR enrichment chemistry, "so we not only get a robust sarcoma fusion panel, but we can also find novel markers that cannot be detected by other targeted enrichment chemistries," Roger Hubbard, founder, president, and CEO of MPLN, said in a statement.
"[W]e can use the sarcoma panel as a baseline and then easily customize it based on recommendations we receive," he added. "This level of customization is something that other NGS companies just don't offer."
Financial and other terms of the agreements between the companies were not disclosed.